FROM A LETTER TO I. S. UNSCHLICHT

Written:Written between January 26 and 31, 1922Published:First published in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 54.

      Printed from a typewritten text of I. S. Unschlicht’s reminiscences.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      page454b.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Publicityfor revolutionary tribunals should not be a
rule; their panels should be augmented by “your” men, and
their ties (of all sorts) with the All-Russia Cheka
strengthened; theforceand speed of their reprisals should be
intensified and the C.C.’s attention to this increased. The
slightest increase in banditry, etc., should entail martial
law and shootings on the spot. The C.P.C. will be able
to pass this swiftly, if you look sharp, and it could be done
by phone.

Alsohave a talk with Stalin, and if you consider it
necessary, show Him this
letter.[1]

[1]Thisis in reply to a letter from I. S. Unschlicht, Deputy
Chairman of the All-Russia Cheka, of January 26, 1922, in which he
stood up for the new draft statute of the All-Russia Cheka, worked
out by its Collegium, and insisted that it should retain its
punitive functions. The letter is quoted in his reminiscences of Lenin,
He sets out the beginning of the letter as follows: “Lenin did not
agree with my arguments and sent me a reply saying that my
proposals could and should be realised not my way but through a
C.C. commission draft.... Lenin ended his letter by noting that on
the basis of the decisions taken by a Politbureau commission ‘an
increase in the speed and force of reprisals can and must be
achieved’” (Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1965, No. 4, p. 97). See also
this volume, Document 522.